4
Making and Supporting Community
Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes
Jeffrey Hou
Community gardening is enjoying a resurgence of interest in the United
States as issues of health and urban food systems attract growing atten-
tion. In cities from coast to coast, a host of new initiatives also reflects
interest in and awareness of community gardening’s multiple benefits
in food security, job training, community building, neighborhood revi-
talization, and activation of urban spaces. In New Orleans’s City Park,
for example, youth organizers and Tulane University’s Tulane City
Center created the Grow Dat Youth Farm to provide healthy food for
local residents and develop youth leadership. In Oakland, California,
urban food advocates are working in a variety of ways, including com-
munity gardening, to address food security and justice in the city’s
historically underserved neighborhoods (Prince 2013). In Seattle, where
community gardens have enjoyed municipal support since the 1970s,
new kinds of community gardens are being developed, from food
forests to rooftop gardens, to meet the growing appetite for urban
gardening.
Despite their popularity, however, community gardens remain one of
the most poorly defined types of land use in North American cities.
Spatially, garden sites exist in a wide variety of physical settings, includ-
ing vacant lots, utility corridors, and public rights-of-way. They are
sometimes mixed with or developed as part of housing complexes,
schools, and health facilities. Institutionally, gardens are often considered
as an interim use, eventually to be replaced by a higher-value develop-
ment (Lawson 2004, 2005; Nordahl 2009). Only rarely, they are incor-
porated into a city’s parks and open space system. But even in such
formalized contexts, community gardens often exist through temporary
agreements between different governmental agencies and jurisdictions,
subject to political and institutional change. As a result, community
gardens are often characterized by makeshift structures and fences,
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80 Jeffrey Hou
lacking permanence or formal design elements. The seasonally changing
crops and plants also help reinforce the perception of community gardens
as ephemeral spaces.
The informal dimension of community gardens has been both an asset
and a challenge for community gardeners and supporters. On one hand,
as informal open spaces, community gardens provide low-cost opportu-
nities to turn underutilized urban spaces into productive landscapes.
They have enabled communities to mobilize and undertake collective
actions to address issues of neighborhood improvement, safety, food
production, and the need for green amenities and social space. On the
other hand, the perception of them as interim uses and the lack of insti-
tutional and legal support often put gardens at risk of displacement and
relocation. The significant volunteer support that gardens require also
puts a heavy burden on certain individuals in the community. As com-
munity gardening gains increasing interest and popularity in the United
States, attempts to incorporate community gardens as informal spaces
within a formal institutional framework present both challenges and
opportunities for communities and municipalities.
This chapter examines issues and challenges facing community gardens
as settings at the crossroad between informality and formalized planning.
As one of very few cities in the United States with a municipal community
gardening program, Seattle serves as a case study of how public policy
and institutional actions supporting community gardening have been
carried out without inhibiting the informal social arrangements that
sustain community gardens. The study draws from previous fieldwork
and recent interviews with key program staff and nonprofit leaders.1 This
chapter first gives a brief historic overview of urban gardening in the
United States, followed by a discussion of community gardening in
Seattle, in which I relate the successes, challenges, and lessons drawn
from the city’s community gardens movement. The chapter concludes by
reflecting on the potential contributions of community gardens not only
as landscapes and lived spaces of contemporary cities but also in the
discourse and practice of city planning.
A Historically Informal and Marginalized Urban Landscape
Community gardens in the United States usually consist of individual
plots on urban sites of modest size. They are outcomes of collective
efforts at the community and neighborhood level. In its various incarna-
tions, community gardening has been around in the United States for
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 81
over a century. In the early part of the twentieth century, urban gardening
was promoted during wartime and during the economic depression to
produce food and alleviate poverty (Lawson 2004, 2005). In the 1970s,
as inner-city decline spread throughout the United States, community
gardening became an urban revitalization strategy for many neighbor-
hoods combating crime and vandalism (Lawson 2004, 2005; Warner
1987). During that time, groups such as the Green Guerrillas in New
York City and Boston Urban Gardeners worked to reclaim and rebuild
communities through gardening (Lawson 2004). In the context of the
urban disinvestment of the 1970s, Sam Bass Warner (1987) argues that
the community gardening movement reflected a politics of dignity and
self-help. In both historical episodes, however, the support for commu-
nity gardens was temporary. As wars ended and economic prosperity
returned, governments stopped promoting gardening for food produc-
tion and the alleviation of poverty (Lawson 2004, 2005). Similarly in
private philanthropy, funding support shifted toward urban greening and
beautification (Warner 1987).
During the 1970s, as community gardens became a strategy for com-
batting urban blight, public agencies had provided support for several
thousand gardening projects (Jamison 1985). Some states and munici-
palities introduced supportive legislation, such as the Massachusetts Gar-
dening and Farm Act of 1974 that enabled gardeners and farmers to use
vacant public land at no cost (Warner 1987). Cities, including Oakland
and New York City, have used Community Development Block Grants
to fund community gardening efforts (Francis et al. 1984). However,
lacking land tenure and official recognition, community gardens had only
a precarious existence. In a 1996 survey conducted by the American
Community Gardening Association, only 5.3 percent of 6,020 gardens
tabulated were in ownership or trusts (ACGA 1998). In 1999, New York
City was going to sell off more than 100 community gardens to develop-
ers. This came after twenty years of support for community gardening
from the city’s popular GreenThumb program (Kirschbaum 2000). More
recently, gardeners and activists in Los Angeles fought but lost a widely
publicized battle to save the South Central Farm, a 14-acre site located
in an industrial area that supported hundreds of families of Mesoameri-
can descent (Mare and Peña 2010).
The precarious state of community gardens in U.S. cities partly reflects
their ambiguous status in municipal planning and legal terms. Legal
expert Jane Schukoske (2000) notes that community garden legislation
has received little attention in the legal literature. According to her study,
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82 Jeffrey Hou
codes of many U.S. municipalities use the term “gardens” only in refer-
ence to privately owned land, and rarely in the context of zoning provi-
sions and other statues, while some municipal ordinances include them
within the definition of the broader term “park.” This finding is echoed
by a survey of twenty-two U.S. city planning agencies by Kameshwari
Pothukuchi and Jerome Kaufman, who found community food system
issues to be low on the agenda of practicing planners, scholars, and
educators. One of the reasons was that “it’s not our turf” (Pothukuchi
and Kaufman 2000: 116). And it was not until 2005 that the Annual
Conference of the American Planning Association started regular sessions
on the topic of food planning (APA 2007).
Laura Lawson (2004) notes that because community gardens are
perceived as opportunistic and temporary, they have been largely
ignored in long-range planning. Even in the 1960s and 1970s, with the
advent of advocacy planning, she states, “planners recognized commu-
nity gardens as participatory assets without necessarily addressing the
implications for land use and open space planning” (Lawson 2004:
153). Three assumptions have shaped planning’s general approach to
community gardens, according to Lawson: first, a fundamental mis-
match between desire for orderly urban planning and the incremental
gestures of gardens; second, the personal nature of gardening; and
third, the gardens’ association with social actions rather than physical
entities. She adds, “The appropriate venue of this kind of activity . . .
was generally considered the realm of voluntary associations and civic
improvement societies and not of professionals” (Lawson 2004: 166).
Similarly, Warner (1987) observes that, unlike the northern European
model of government policies supporting urban gardening, public
response to community gardening in North America has been mixed:
“The idea of a city that would provide open spaces to those who
wished to garden was a concept quite beyond the American imagina-
tion” (Warner 1987: 16).
Over the years, community gardening has faced its share of criticism
from city staff and planning professionals. In a study that compared
community gardens with traditional urban parks, Mark Francis (1987:
106) found municipal staff likening the gardens to a “private club”
because they were typically fenced. He also noted that “the value of the
gardens as permanent open space was discounted by all officials who
were interviewed,” and a common concern was that “they do not look
good” (Francis 1987: 107–108). Similarly, in examining issues of urban
food production, Darrin Nordahl (2009: 53) found that “most public
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 83
agencies discourage or downright prohibit the planting of edibles in
public spaces, largely over concerns about maintenance and perceived
mess.”
To address the issue of impermanence, a variety of efforts have
emerged in recent years to protect and bring stability to garden sites.
Some of the techniques include use of park department stewardship,
land trusts, conservation easements, and lease agreements (Kirschbaum
1998). Throughout the United States, many nonprofit organizations and
private-public partnerships have developed to support community gar-
dening in the face of limited municipal support. These include the Park-
ways Partners in New Orleans, a grant-funded nonprofit partnership
that has built 142 gardens since 1992, mainly in low-income neighbor-
hoods; NeighborSpace, a land trust in Chicago funded by the City, the
Chicago Parks District, and the Cook County Forest Preserve District;
and the Parks and People Foundation, an independent nonprofit in Bal-
timore that supports urban greening, restoration of natural resources,
and a wide range of recreational and educational activities for youth
(Kirschbaum 2000).
Among the growing number of organizational models, Seattle’s
remains an exemplary one that combines municipal support with an
extensive network of nonprofit and community actors. Seattle’s experi-
ence, therefore, offers a view into how planning and municipal institu-
tions can collaborate with nongovernmental actors and partners to
support community gardens as an integral part of the contemporary
urban fabric in the United States.
Community Gardening in Seattle
As in the rest of the country, urban gardening in Seattle has experienced
multiple waves of growth, including efforts during the Great Depression
such as the Airport farm (a 55-acre site in which food was grown and
distributed to charitable agencies) as well as activities during the wars
(Hou, Johnson, and Lawson 2009). After a lull in the 1950s and 1960s,
a new wave of garden activism began in the 1970s that gradually led
to the establishment of a municipal program and networks of support-
ers. The movement began with grassroots efforts to build garden plots
at the Picardo Farm, which the city later leased from the Picardo family
in 1973 as an experiment to support community gardening. The success
of the ten-month experiment gave rise to the establishment of the
P-Patch Community Gardening Program (Lawson 2005). Starting with
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84 Jeffrey Hou
ten garden sites in 1974, the number of P-Patch gardens (the name “P-
Patch” honors the Picardo family; DON 2009) grew to 60 by 1993
under the oversight of the P-Patch Program (Alexander, n.d.; Hucka,
n.d.). By 2010, the program was serving 4,400 gardeners in 75 sites
scattered throughout the city, from dense downtown neighborhoods to
suburbs, and on both private and public lands.2 In addition to providing
coordination and services for community gardens, the P-Patch Program
supports market gardening, youth gardening, and community food
security efforts. Today, the program is widely recognized as a model for
other cities in the country (Kirschbaum 2000; Lawson 2005; Schukoske
2000).
While its leadership is important, the P-Patch Program is only part of
an extensive web of support for community gardening in Seattle, rooted
in a long history of civic activism (Hou, Johnson, and Lawson 2009),
including such organizations as P-Patch Trust, Seattle Tilth, Solid Ground,
and King County Master Gardeners. The P-Patch Trust, in particular, was
formed as an advisory and support organization for P-Patch gardens.
Formerly the Friends of P-Patch, the group was first formed in 1979 and
incorporated as a nonprofit in 1994. Using its status as a nonprofit, the
Trust partners with the P-Patch Program to acquire, build, preserve, and
protect community gardens in Seattle’s neighborhoods. In addition to
fundraising and grant writing to support the gardens, it also carries
blanket liability insurance for all P-Patch sites.3
The different organizations often collaborate, an important factor in
supporting community gardening and related efforts. For example, the
Lettuce Link program was conceived in 1998 to deliver excess produce
to local food banks and encourage gardeners to grow food for the needy.
The program was started through collaboration of the Fremont Public
Association (now Solid Ground), the P-Patch Program, and Washington
State University’s Extension Food Garden Project (Borba 1994). Recently,
to address the perennial shortage of garden plots and the persistent
demand for them, an independent group started a website called Urban
Garden Share that matches interested gardeners with available gardens
in Seattle and a few other cities.
In addition to nonprofits and individual volunteers, the P-Patch
Program also relies on support from city agencies. Specifically, the Seattle
Department of Transportation (SDOT), Department of Parks and Rec-
reation, Seattle Housing Authority, and Seattle Public Utilities have all
collaborated with the P-Patch Program to provide sites for community
gardens through leases or permits (Fisher and Roberts 2011). In 1995,
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 85
Figure 4.1
Bradner Gardens Park was developed through a collaborative effort between
neighbors, a nonprofit organization, and city agencies. Photo credit: Vanessa Lee.
the Cultivating Communities program was started by the Friends of
P-Patch and the Seattle Housing Authority to provide land, training, and
technical support to families living in public housing, particularly immi-
grants, to grow food for consumption or for sale (Lawson 2005). More
recently, a memorandum of agreement with SDOT was arranged to allow
for long-term use of a public right-of-way by P-Patch through a “no-fee”
annual street use permit (Fisher and Roberts 2011). Nonprofits and city
agencies also work together on the development of specific sites. For
example, the nine-acre Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, cur-
rently under development, involves a partnership between the Depart-
ment of Parks and Recreation, the Friends of Rainier Beach Urban Farm
and Wetlands, and Seattle Tilth. The seven-acre Beacon Food Forest,
located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood and adjacent to a park, is
another collaborative effort between the P-Patch Program and Seattle
Public Utilities.
Enabling legislation and supportive policies adopted by the city have
been critical to community gardening efforts as well. In 1992, the Seattle
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86 Jeffrey Hou
City Council passed resolution 28610 that declared general support for
community gardening and specific support for making surplus land avail-
able for gardening (Lawson 2005). The city’s 1994 comprehensive plan
set the goal of one community garden per 2,500 households within the
“urban villages”—areas in the city for planned, concentrated growth.
Furthermore, the Urban Village Element of the city’s current comprehen-
sive plan (updated in 2009) includes a policy to promote interagency and
intergovernmental cooperation to expand community gardening oppor-
tunities, and includes P-Patch community gardens among organizations
given priority in using the city’s surplus property. Additionally, “com-
munity garden” is listed as a type of open space acquisition and facility
development that can be used to expand the open space network in an
urban village. In 2008, in an effort to support urban food production,
the City Council passed the Local Food Action Initiative that established
goals and a policy framework for strengthening community and regional
food systems, including community gardening. To support the initiative,
a Food Systems Interdepartmental Team was established to coordinate
actions among different city agencies. In 2010, in a new municipal ordi-
nance adopted by the city, “community garden” became a primary use
permitted in all zones (with restrictions only in designated manufacturing
and industrial centers).
The operation of the P-Patch Program is supported by the city’s
general fund. In 2008, the program had a budget of $659,577, of which
9 percent covered operating costs (including water charges at most
gardens, equipment and supplies, vehicle rental and fuel, professional
services, and some miscellaneous costs), while 85 percent covered staff
costs (DON 2009: 21). Nominal plot fees are also collected from garden-
ers to offset the cost of operation. In 2000 and 2008, with limited
municipal resources yet strong demand for open space amenities, the city
worked with civic organizations to launch two consecutive rounds of
voter-approved tax levies to support acquisition, development, program-
ming, and stewardship of parks and open spaces. The 2008 Parks and
Green Spaces Levy, in particular, included a $2 million fund to support
the development of additional community gardens. The levy also included
$15 million of opportunity funds for projects that may include commu-
nity gardens. As will be discussed later, since its inception in 1988, the
city’s Neighborhood Matching Fund Program has been a major source
of regular support for the development of community gardens. In many
gardens, volunteering and activities such as plant sales also help offset
costs and raise funds for operation and maintenance.
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 87
Informal Practices in a Formally Supported Process
From recent interviews with the P-Patch Program staff and P-Patch Trust
leadership, as well as findings from an earlier study (Hou, Johnson, and
Lawson 2009), it appears that informal practices in the development and
everyday operation of the gardens have been no less important to their
success than the institutional support. First, volunteerism and self-
organization are a regular and important part of how community gardens
are developed and managed on a daily basis. Although some P-Patch sites
are managed directly by the P-Patch Program staff, other sites in the
city are managed and run entirely by volunteers. Of the latter, some
gardens are managed by voluntary site leaders, while others are managed
collectively by a leadership team or a core group of volunteers. It is only
in situations where there are no available site leaders or significant lan-
guage barriers exist among the gardeners that the sites are managed
directly by the P-Patch Program staff. For gardens with site leaders or
leadership teams, garden operation is entirely self-organized. This allows
their operation to correspond with the capacity and specific needs of the
gardeners and the garden sites. The self-organizing aspect of the gardens
also results in a great degree of flexibility that enables gardeners and
communities to utilize the garden in different and sometimes unexpected
ways. Unlike typical city parks that require permits and reservations for
certain activities, decisions regarding events in community gardens are
made solely by site leaders and volunteers.
With such flexibility, P-Patch sites have become settings for a wide
range of activities, including not just food production but also social and
educational events. In Picardo P-Patch, for example, a band approached
the gardeners for permission to play in the garden and has since been
performing during the garden’s many work parties. Similarly, some
gardens have incorporated yoga as part of the work party activities.
P-Patch sites are also used as outdoor classrooms for gardening and
composting as well as environmental education by groups such as the
Urban Pollination Project (UPP), a citizen science project developed by
a group of scientists at the University of Washington. The project encour-
ages the participation of gardeners and citizens in research and learning
activities concerning crops and bee pollination in urban areas. Over
twenty sites now participate in the project. Similarly, another organiza-
tion called City Fruit has been promoting the planting of fruit-bearing
trees in the city. Starting with harvesting fruit trees, the group now holds
classes on P-Patch sites for backyard gardeners and teaches techniques
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88 Jeffrey Hou
Figure 4.2
Social events such as this one in the Danny Woo International Community
Garden bring together and strengthen bonds between gardeners, residents, and
volunteers. Photo credit: Leslie Gia Clark.
for growing fruit trees. On a regular and perhaps more mundane basis,
the gardens have hosted a variety of activities that are important to local
neighborhoods and the gardens themselves. These include community
barbecues and potlucks, holiday parties, concerts, and plant sales. This
growing array of activities has greatly expanded the social benefits of
community gardens in the city. They demonstrate the gardens’ potential
and existing role as an amenity for the wider public and answer the
common critique concerning community gardens as a “private club.”4
With community building identified specifically as a goal of the
P-Patch Program (DON 2009), the program staff are well aware of the
wide range of social benefits of the gardens. Over the years, the program’s
philosophy has been well supported by the Department of Neighbor-
hoods, which hosts the program. Originally part of the Department of
Housing and Human Services, the P-Patch Program was reassigned to
the Department of Neighborhoods in 1997 (Schukoske 2000). Founded
in 1989 by former neighborhood organizer Jim Diers, who served as its
director for fourteen years, the Department of Neighborhoods has been
widely recognized nationally and internationally for its leading role as a
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 89
municipal department supporting community development. Based on a
model of community empowerment, its signature program, the Neigh-
borhood Matching Fund, has served as a primary source of funding for
the development of community gardens. Under the Neighborhood
Matching Fund program, communities can apply for different categories
of funding, including Small and Simple Projects (up to $20,000 per
project) and Large Projects (up to $100,000 project) designed for differ-
ent types of activities. To receive the match from the city, a community
can either raise funds or mobilize volunteers and convert volunteer hours
into a cash equivalent. By design, the grant encourages strong community
mobilization, especially in communities with few financial resources.
In a way, the role of the P-Patch Program is not unlike that of the
Neighborhood Matching Fund program. Rather than carrying out regu-
latory enforcement, the P-Patch Program has been more an enabler and
liaison, as well as a matchmaker of resources for those in need. Although
the P-Patch Program does provide guidelines and codes of conduct for
garden sites concerning matters such as public access, plot assignments
and renewal, types of fertilizers, requirement of volunteer hours, and
overall city policy concerning race and social justice, much of the actual
implementation is entrusted to site leaders and volunteers. According to
program staff, when occasional conflicts within a garden or with neigh-
bors occur, the resolution is usually worked out by the site leaders and
immediate parties. Though the approach, in part, reflects the limited size
and capacity of the program staff, it also reveals how the program sees
itself less as an enforcement agency and more as a bridge between the
municipal institution and the informal, community-based process. For
example, when a group of garden supporters seek to utilize a city prop-
erty as a garden site, the P-Patch Program helps coordinate with the city
agency that manages the property. When high school students or pro-
grams look for opportunities for earning service-learning credits, they
are directed by the P-Patch staff to gardens in need. When gardeners are
in need of technical assistance, the staff directs them to local nonprofits
that can provide such help.
Persistent Struggles
While the P-Patch Program has been widely recognized as a national
model, there have also been persistent struggles. First, land tenure con-
tinues to be a challenge as most sites, even those on city property, are
arranged on the basis of temporary agreements. There have been recent
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90 Jeffrey Hou
episodes in which garden sites were relocated or threatened with other
development even after decades in existence. In recent years, a growing
number of P-Patches have been developed on park properties. But it was
not until around 2000 that the city started considering P-Patches as a
legitimate use of park space. And it was not until 2011 that a memoran-
dum of agreement was signed with the Department of Parks and Recre-
ation to formalize the arrangement. While there is now a better
understanding of the public benefits of community gardens (as well as
the financial advantage of self-maintenance), some Parks and Recreation
staff still consider P-Patch gardens a private use of public property.
Successive municipal budget cuts have put the program under pressure
to repeatedly justify its public benefits—a recurring challenge for advo-
cates of community gardens. Over the years, the size of the program and
its budget have remained small, despite the popularity of community
gardening and its growing portfolio of sites and services. An evaluation
of the program in 2009 reported that the program’s ability to address
the strong demand is complicated by the high cost and low availability
of land, and its small staff size (DON 2009).
Additionally, to address the long waiting list for garden plots, the
Department of Parks and Recreation recently proposed enforcing a three-
year term limit for plot assignments. The proposal met with strong
opposition from garden activists, who viewed it as counterproductive to
the actual operation and management of the gardens that required the
involvement of knowledgeable and experienced gardeners/volunteers.
According to an estimate by the P-Patch Trust, the term limit would force
two-thirds of the current gardeners to leave the gardens, resulting in
many sites without seasoned gardeners and site leaders—a detriment to
the long-term management of those sites.
In the face of these challenges, it appears that informal practices have
again demonstrated their unique value. Specifically, the strong grass-
roots support and political capital cultivated through the community
empowerment model has enabled the program and the movement to
weather the storms and thrive. In the mid-1990s, when the city planned
to sell the site of the Mount Baker P-Patch (a designated park site) for
private development, garden activists organized and lobbied the city to
stop the transaction. Eventually, a coalition of garden supporters put
forward an initiative, called “Protect Our Parks,” that required the city
to replace park properties sold, traded, or converted to non-park uses
with similar kinds of properties in the same neighborhood. The initia-
tive was adopted by the City Council and became a city ordinance that
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 91
saved the Mount Baker site as well as other park properties throughout
the city. Garden supporters have also been instrumental in lobbying the
city to protect the budget for the P-Patch Program. In 1993, the Friends
of P-Patch promoted a joint City Council and mayoral resolution sup-
porting community gardens, and in 2000 they launched a five-year plan
with the P-Patch Program, which was also adopted by the ordinance
(Macdonald, n.d.).
In a recent citywide budget cut, the P-Patch Program was able to have
its budget restored by the City Council, thanks to strong backing from
supporters of community gardens. The network of organizations also
supported the ballot initiative for the 2008 levy, leading to funds for
building more P-Patch gardens. Realizing the fiscal reality of the munici-
pality and continued demand, the P-Patch Program is currently working
with the P-Patch Trust to delegate some responsibilities to the Trust in
order to alleviate the increasing workload on the limited staff and
improve its services. Thanks to the strong opposition from gardeners, the
Department of Parks and Recreation eventually backed away from the
proposal to apply a term limit to the use of garden plots.5 In all these
instances, strong backing from individuals and organizations outside the
municipal domain has been instrumental in supporting the program and
the community gardening movement in the city.
Coproduction of Urban Landscapes: Lessons from Seattle
Today, community gardens are some of the most creative and well-used
open spaces in Seattle. In Bradner Gardens Park (formerly the Mount
Baker P-Patch), neighborhood artists and students from local schools
created colorful mosaics on benches, spigots, and restroom walls. Archi-
tecture students from the University of Washington worked with resi-
dents to create artful fences and shelters. These features not only help
mediate the colocation of garden plots and other program elements in
the park, but also transform the park into a delightful urban open space
enjoyed by gardeners, neighbors, and visitors alike. In the Danny Woo
International Community Garden, located in the International District
and managed independently by a community organization, a large
chicken coop was added recently as part of a new children’s garden. The
site now welcomes not only elderly immigrant gardeners but also younger
children from the growing number of families in the neighborhood. Cur-
rently, a plan is being developed for a community kitchen with financial
support from the Neighborhood Matching Fund. In the new UpGarden
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92 Jeffrey Hou
Figure 4.3
The UpGarden P-Patch, one of the newest gardens in Seattle, turned the top of
a multistory parking garage into a productive urban landscape. Photo credit:
Jeffrey Hou.
P-Patch that sits on top of a multistory parking garage, designers and
community members capitalized on the unique character of the site by
incorporating a used vintage car filled in with soil and planted with
vegetation. In addition, a used Airstream trailer serves as the tool shed.
Currently in the planning process, the Beacon Food Forest in the Beacon
Hill neighborhood is envisioned as a new type of forest garden that
produces edible fruits and nuts. The implementation of the project is also
supported by the Neighborhood Matching Fund.
While these gardens are all distinct from each other, they all straddle
between institutional support and a significant grassroots process. On
the one hand, informal, self-organized grassroots efforts have been critical
to the strong community ownership of the garden sites. On the other
hand, the P-Patch Program and the Neighborhood Matching Fund in
particular provide the necessary institutional and financial support.
Although conflicts between formal institutions and gardeners involved
in informal garden activities do arise, as in the case of the Bradner
Gardens Park or in the term limit debate, it is often the informal social
processes that save the day in terms of mobilizing support for the gardens.
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Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes 93
With the involvement of gardeners, neighbors, civic organizations, profes-
sionals, schools, and city staff, the gardens become a coproduced space.
The coproduction of community gardens as an informal yet socially
engaged space holds significant implications for transforming not only the
landscapes of today’s city but also the long-standing discourse and prac-
tice of city planning. Specifically, the making and continued management
of community gardens represents a collaborative model of placemaking
in which citizen groups and city agencies have equally important roles.
For citizen groups, the model presents opportunities to become more
actively engaged in shaping and transforming the everyday landscapes of
neighborhoods and districts, as well as assuming a greater role in the
broader process of placemaking in the city. For city agencies and planners,
it means a fundamental change in perspective and position: rather than
maintaining full control of the process of city making, agencies and plan-
ners need to work with citizens and communities as partners.
As a normative practice, city planning has long focused on formal
mechanisms at the expense of informal social processes and reciprocity.
Even as participatory planning has become the norm in many municipali-
ties, the form of participation has been limited to formalized venues such
as public meetings, focus groups, workshops, and surveys that often stifle
the creativity and spontaneity associated with informal social processes.
The coproduction of community gardens in Seattle and the self-organized
nature of developing and maintaining the garden sites suggest the ability
of citizens and community groups to directly shape urban landscapes.
Rather than competing modes of spatial production, the Seattle experi-
ence suggests that formal institutions and informal social mechanisms
can coalesce and form effective partnerships that respond to the com-
plexity of planning and placemaking in the contemporary city.
Acknowledgment
The author wishes to thank Joyce Moty of the P-Patch Trust, Rich Mac-
donald, Kenya Fredie, and Laura Raymond of the P-Patch Program, and
Michael Shiosaki of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation for
being interviewed for this chapter. Their immense knowledge and input
are invaluable to the findings presented here.
Notes
1. The earlier study, completed in 2006, was supported by a grant from the
Landscape Architecture Foundation through its Land and Community Design
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94 Jeffrey Hou
case study series. My co-principal investigators were Julie Johnson and Laura
Lawson. We conducted interviews with four P-Patch Program staff, fourteen site
coordinators and program managers, twenty-two gardeners, and nine designers.
For this chapter, I conducted in-depth, follow-up interviews with three P-Patch
Program staff, one senior Parks staff, a senior garden activist, and a landscape
architect.
2. Based on a survey conducted by the P-Patch Program in 2007, 55 percent of
the P-Patch gardeners were low-income (defined as those earning less than 80
percent of the median income for the Seattle-Bellevue area, which was $75,600
in 2007). More than 75 percent of the gardeners earned less than the area median
income; 48 percent lived in apartments; 77 percent had no gardening space where
they lived; 20 percent were people of color. Program-wide, P-Patchers were 80
percent Caucasian, versus 70 percent for the city as a whole, 2.1 percent Ameri-
can Indian (1 percent for the city), and 15.2 percent Asian (13 percent for Seattle).
The report recognizes areas for improvement, and notes that African Americans
and Latinos are not well represented in P-Patches: 2.7 percent and 2.5 percent
respectively (although growing from 2 percent and 1.5 percent in the 2004
survey), versus 8 percent and 5 percent for the city (DON, n.d.).
3. The insurance program was created as part of an effort to develop the Culti-
vating Communities program and serve low-income communities. The liability
insurance covers only the gardeners.
4. In Seattle, the P-Patch sites are required to provide public access, and fences
around garden plots are not allowed.
5. In response to the long waiting list, the P-Patch Program has taken actions
including establishing a maximum square-foot limit for garden plots, limiting
the number of sites that prospective gardeners can apply for at one time, and
actively creating new garden sites. These measures have resulted in a shorter
waiting list.
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